so give the dead cat a name
by Shiluette
Summary: Their cat dies, and ex-lovers bury the cat together. Tooru still does not know a lot of answers about Tobio. Oikage.
Out of the blue he called. Tooru picked up his phone without much thought and berated himself a second later, but it was too late for that. The voice on the other side was familiar and distant. It had been too long, Tooru told himself, that's why he would not hang up on the first try. He would only ask for pleasantries.

"The cat died."

He opened his mouth and nothing came out. He only gaped. Around him, he only chased the people speeding past him with his eyes, and Tobio did not say anything after that. There was nothing more on the other side of the line; the speaker had said his piece and that was all there was to it. Tobio's typical lack of mannerisms had always irritated Tooru to no end. He sighed and rolled his eyes, wondering how a person could continually be the antisocial and irritable young boy he had once known. He wanted to tell this uncute and disastrous boy that his way of mourning was atrocious.

"I see." And he too, also offered a banal answer to a stupid announcement. He closed his eyes and understood how tired he felt. He had been laboring over his internship for the past week and this was his only day off. He was about to say this, and more too, perhaps, but what came out was a different proposal. "Should we bury it together, then?"

Springtime was in the air; it smelled sharply of pollen and fresh buds.

/

Tobio did not name the cat.

He was always bad with small animals, Tooru remembered, and he had always floundered when it came to their cat, as it growled and Tobio took a step back, wary and guarded of the mewl. The cat had always ran away when it saw Tobio, afraid of Tobio's sullen face as he approached the cat in his awkward way. Tooru had always stood by and laughed at him, and naturally the role of the cat's caretaking was left to him. Tooru cleaned and fed the cat, and Tobio stood by in the sidelines with a wistful look on his face. This was what was ordinary between them. There was nothing Tobio could do about it, and there was nothing stopping Tooru from picking on the younger boy.

When he moved out, he did not take the cat with him. This was when he realized that Tooru did not really like the cat as much as he realized.

It had been a long time since he set foot in their old neighborhood. Tooru went without much thought, allowing his feet to guide him to the subways and the familiar roads and alleyways, and soon he was at the front of Tobio's doorstep. Even a few years after everything, the lampposts and the sinister rows of houses were overly intact, as if he had just left the day before. Time did not pass in this area. It was a weekday; he did not meet any people out on the street and the quietness added to the surreal visit he was about to make.

He thought he would feel more shaken. Instead he was too tired to really feel anything. Then why did he come, he asked himself. An answer failed to arise. He could leave; the doorbell had not yet been rung. He was staring there like an idiot, and he laughed at himself for this. He was about to then, but someone else was quicker.

"Oikawa-san."

Tobio opened the door.

What a meaningless reunion, Tooru thought. It reminded him of their goodbyes, which had been just as banal and natural. He curled his lips and waved. This faux façade too, how long it had been. How revolting it is.

"Hello, Tobio-chan."

/

He was older now, to understand why his relationships with girls had been so disastrous. He had loved volleyball too much and had no other time to love anything more, and it was natural that girls would feel left out by his sheer and one-sided passion. This was what he understood in his head, but harder to understand. Volleyball had been everything in his life back then, and to date someone who could not understand that was unfathomable at best. He had once thought mutual understanding was the idealistic relationship he should strive for. This had been his younger side speaking.

Older, he had dated Tobio and realized how meaningless those words had been. Tobio was intact and essential to his volleyball history, and perhaps that was why. Perhaps he had dated Tobio because he could not imagine a life without Tobio's volleyball, and therefore could not differentiate his love for volleyball and Tobio. Tobio existed with his volleyball career. Had.

Even now, Tooru could not give an answer to satisfy himself with. Why did he once love Tobio? Time passed; he forgot. This is what Tooru convinced himself with when he entered that familiar house and smelt fresh laundered clothes. He smiled a little. This extent of fond reminiscing would be okay, he cajoled himself.

Tobio's eyes were dry. He followed in Tooru's footsteps and eyed a small box near the door as Tooru looked around.

"I put him in the box," he said. His voice was quiet but unshaking. "I thought…he would smell."

Okay. Tooru nodded a little. Of course a dead body would smell. He could not imagine Tobio crying, clutching a decaying, worn body. Would he have fed him, cared for him as I had once I was gone. That Tooru could not ask.

"And the shovel?"

"Outside. I did dig up a little…"

"I'll take care of the rest." Their eyes met. Tobio's blue eyes were tranquil and unmoving. He couldn't help but laugh a little.

"You're too calm," he chided. It wasn't meant to mock, but he sounded aggressive nevertheless. "Are you okay?"

Tooru had fed, bathed, brushed, scratched, tucked in the cat when they were together. Tobio, always in the corner, sulking because he could not touch without agitating the cat. He had always pouted his lips and did not do much to help. But Tooru did not, in the end, feel much for the cat.

Tobio did not name the cat. Instead, the cat became a proper noun to him, The Cat, and in Tobio's standards, Tooru thought it quite a romantic gesture on his part.

Tobio nodded a little, his round head bobbing slightly.

/

Tobio did not cry much. When he was sad, his face would grow pale, but nothing much was amiss. He only listened to the other speaker and nodded and accepted the violating words without much defense. Does he want to be downtrodden by other people, Tooru often wondered. Where was the stamina and the resilience he found in Tobio's volleyball skills. He often grew mad for no reason. He could not understand this silence. Can't you fire up with something other than volleyball? He often mocked, and later, yelled. He soon thought that the tearless face was how he knew of Tobio's apathy to life. This was the only way he could understand the younger boy.

When he left, he vaguely expected Tobio to stop him. He thought Tobio would like him enough to do so; or no, he thought Tobio liked his volleyball enough to catch him by the hand and plead. This was Tooru's mistake and fallacy in a relationship that he did not have the answers to. An old teammate, an old rival, now strangers and ex-lovers. There were many things that defined what they had. Nothing seemed to weigh upon him.

Afterwards, Tooru came back for his things, and they then ended things cordially and cleanly. The house Tobio kept, as well as the rent, and Tooru soon found a new place. For a spur of the moment argument, everything went smoothly. It wasn't the first time that his relationship ended so cordially, but Tooru had never been so empty. His insides shriveled. And perhaps, he thought of Tobio feeling okay with everything and a deep, ugly feeling twisted inside of him. Tobio would always be okay with everything. So that was why, when he finally took a last look at the empty house with his belongings, he left the cat.

He heard a familiar meow, and turned around. The cat was flickering its tail, and looking up at him. Eyes open and pleading, Tooru would have liked to have thought.

I'm not going to take you, Tooru thought, sticking out a tongue at the damned cat, and even if he knew how silly his actions were, it didn't matter. This was his petty revenge; this was the only action he could take and console himself that he was justified to do so.

Later he thought, that was at an age when he could do silly things and it was okay, that he was allowed to make mistakes and yell because he was young to be raging and childish. Tobio was the abnormal one, who was calm and unmoving in life. That was how he comforted himself.

/

"He lived quite awhile, the cat."

After, Tooru dug and Tobio watched him silently without much change in his expression. He only clutched the small box and hug it near his chest. Tooru was wary of silence; he filled it with meaningless talk.

"Oh…yeah. Someone told me to make more expressions when I took care of him."

He looked at Tobio's face closely for the first time. He looked tired. He was thinner and aged. The face that Tooru met filled him with something nauseating and familiar. It was an unpleasant feeling. His head hurt.

He had a bad habit of vilifying Tobio. When he was in high school, this tempered down and he thought he overcame this, but when they began dating, it became a different story. Tooru liked Tobio. He liked him but he did not know if this feeling was enough for him to overlook Tobio's atrocious social skills and awkwardness, and Tooru did not have it in him to compensate years and years of Tobio's failing attempts at human communication. He did not think he was kind enough to embrace Tobio's faults. But even besides that, he was anxious. His relationship was defined on anxiety, because Tobio was so hard to read at the best of times. Even now, when he looked at the younger boy, he did not know what Tobio was thinking. So he said now, in an even voice,

"Oh, you realized. He always cringed at how you looked at him."

"You knew?"

It was the first facial change Tobio undertook. The tired façade broke down, and soon it became a natural, annoyed one as Tobio glared at him. Tooru laughed without thinking. Suddenly, they were back.

"Of course I knew. You're the idiot. What kind of cat would like it if you made such a horrid face, hmm?"

"….You could have told me."

Oh, you're pouting. Looking sincerely disgusted, Tobio's eyes fell upon the small hole Tooru had dug.

"I can't help it if Tobio-chan is an idiot."

Idiot, he affirmed with a small smirk. Tobio's face morphed into a fierce scowl, but he did not reply back. Tooru's smile remained. He felt as if he won something.

"But you're not crying. I thought you would. You liked the cat."

He was not about to ask this, not over the phone, not ever. But because the mood was suddenly light and so natural. Later Tooru would justify this to himself when he trudged back home and poured a bottle of sake. When he would fall asleep later, that was how he would persuade himself. This was the last time he could crack a joke at Tobio's expense. Tobio, you're taking death too peacefully, that's not very nice. This was his light bantering, his mocking lilt that held deeper meanings.

Tobio did not answer for a long time. He hung his head. Oh, god. Tooru was about to quash down the irritation bubbling inside him when Tobio finally answered in a small voice, "I don't need to cry to be sad."

Later, as Iwaizumi poured him a drink, he tsked. You really are a fucking idiot. Tooru could not refute to this.

Tobio's eyes met his. It was so empty. There was an emptiness that tears could not fill, that could not define sadness.

They buried the cat. He could not ask even to his last. The cat, what did it mean to you. You were an idiot, Tobio, for investing so much meaning into that tiny creature. You could have given those feelings to me.

They were too young to understand this back then.

They said their goodbyes again. Tooru drew in a breath and slowed down his walk. But even so, Tobio did not stop him.

/

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/

A/N: I should stop writing drabbles and get a start on the multi-chaptered fic that I want to write but feel too lazy to crank up shit that I can't really handle. Someone write down all my plot bunnies for me please...


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